I’ve been working on a redesign of hanafuda and hwatu cards to make them more approachable for beginners. Here’s what a recent iteration looks like.

There’s two main goals with the redesign. First is to make the cards more vibrant and interpretable than the traditional black-heavy artwork. Second is to give some guidance on how the cards should be used by adding a caption with the plant species, month, and value each card represents.

This is a work-in-progress. I’ve improved on the captions since this version. As always, I welcome your feedback.

MotivationHanafuda and hwatu cards are gorgeous pieces of tiny art. These playing cards from Japan and Korea respectively entice adults and children alike, prompting them to ask, “how do you play?” That’s when you take a deep breath.

Credit: Roy Levien

In broad strokes, hanafuda and hwatu cards have a scheme similar to poker cards. Poker has 4 suits — hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades — and each suit has 13 face values: Ace, 2, 3,… Jack, Queen, King.

Hanafuda and hwatu cards are transposed. They have 12 months of the year, and each month has 4 cards of different value, ranging from bright (20 points), animal (10), ribbon (5), to chaff (1).

The months are represented as plants: March is cherry blossom, October is maple, November is willow, and so on. Much of the symbolism of the plants, as well as the animals and other objects found on these cards can be lost to Westerners, myself included. It doesn’t help that leaves and grass are traditionally painted as black, making the art all the more inscrutable. And that all 48 cards have unique artwork. But part of the fun is learning about them.

The trouble comes with the inconsistency in their values. You’d think easy peasy: each month gets 1 bright, 1 animal, 1 ribbon, and 1 chaff card. But not so fast. Each month is made up differently to spice up gameplay. For example, January has 1 bright, 1 ribbon, and 2 chaffs. February has 1 animal, 1 ribbon, and 2 chaffs. December has 1 bright and 3 chaffs.

Simply refer to the drawings on the cards, you say. But then you learn an animal is not an animal — sometimes it’s a bright, as in the case of the crane. And objects like the wooden bridge and drinking cup are animals.

And don’t get me started on the convoluted scoring system for Go-Stop, the predominate way that Hwatu is played in Korea.

In Go-Stop, the cup and bridge cards can be played as either animal or double junk.

Needless to say, keeping straight the months, and more importantly for gameplay, point values poses a barrier. This redesign is my attempt to address that.

There have been plenty of alternative designs, like this Nintendo deck with Mario characters. While fun, they don’t clarify the meaning or value of the cards for newcomers.

CreditsThe artwork is designed by Louie Mantia, who’s also the talented designer behind the gorgeous Junior Hanafuda decks.

The printed the initial runs through Make Playing Cards. Traditional hwatu cards measure about 35mm x 54mm and are made of thick rigid plastic that makes a satisfying sound when slapped down on each other. Mine are made of thinner flexible plastic and are slightly larger at 44mm x 89mm.

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